Alive (The Crave) (16 page)

She let out a defeated sigh and brushed the tip of her Craftsman against the side of her combat boot before pushing away from the wall. The air smelled like rain. She looked up at the dark night sky. There was no rotted bleach scent tainting the soft breeze that whispered among the trees in the yard.
Where are all the jenks?
She didn’t miss them in the least, but she couldn’t deny the uneasy feeling churning in her gut.

After several minutes, she trudged back into the house more annoyed than when she’d walked out. She came into the living room to find it empty, save for the lone candle still burning in the center. She wanted to call out to Gage, but didn’t want to risk waking Maddie or Joseph if they were already sleeping. Instead, she crept along the hallway to the bedroom on the end. The master bedroom, where Gage claimed they were spending the night together.
What was with that comment anyway?

The door was cracked open and she could see the light of a candle flickering inside. Another wave of disappointment hit her, making her feel heavy, like she swallowed a sack of rocks. He was just going to go to bed and say nothing to her? She had the urge to kick the door as hard as she could with her boot. She didn’t.

She took a deep breath to try and calm her rattled nerves.
What is with me? Distance is what I wanted from him anyway. He’s an asshole. A total asshole, remember?

She hadn’t forgotten and the reminder was enough to force her to turn away from the door, only she didn’t make it two steps before she stepped face-first into a hard male chest.

“Oh!” She didn’t scream, but the utterance was louder than she would have liked. She made to bring her Craftsman in front of her, but someone grabbed the bladed part before she could.

“It’s just me.” Gage’s voice was like music to her ears.

She could hardly make him out in the darkness.

“Everything okay?” Joseph’s groggy voice came from the front of the hallway.

“Fine. You’ve never heard a woman gasp in pleasure before?” He shot off before Eve could say anything reassuring.

She sucked in a breath, realizing what he said. She had no doubt that her eyes were bugging out of her head. “Gage—”

She was cut off by Joseph’s chuckles. It was one of those moments where guys would high five at a frat party in a lame movie. Eve hadn’t gotten to watch much TV, but plenty of people had iPhones at school. One time she’d surreptitiously watched some of a movie called House Bunny just sitting behind one of the girl’s in speech class.

She opened her mouth to tell them both they were assholes, only to be hustled forward into the big bedroom. “Gage, what the hell—” Her words died in her throat when he spun her around to face him. The glow of the candle in the room was bright enough for her to see his face.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Eve furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about?” When he continued to stare at her with a ferocious expression on his face, things clicked into place. “Who, Joseph?”

He nodded his head in quick jerk toward his chest.

“Well, I didn’t at first, but I can’t lie that he’s growing on me, I mean…he did stitch me up after all and Maddie seems pretty cute.” Whatever she said must have been the wrong answer, because he took a step closer, putting him only inches away from her. She took a step back, trying not to inhale his masculine scent that sent her body into a frenzy.

She could feel the heat coming off of him. Like boiling water, it scalded her, but in a way that had her on the verge of melting.
How does he do this to me?

“Gage, why are you looking at me like that?” The look of intensity in his eyes made them seem darker, almost black. Either that or she was imagining things in the dim lighting.

“I can’t do this with you Eve, not again.” He took another step forward, his fists clenched by his sides.

She mirrored his movement. “Do what with me?”

“This.” He moved again, but this time her legs met the edge of the queen-size bed.

There could only be one “this” and Eve was sure that she had missed something. She wasn’t doing “this” with him. Her body thought differently, responding to him like he was the bread and she was the butter ready to be spread.

“What are you talking about?” She tried to sound rational and not lost in the moment, but her eyes locked on his full lips.
Lips I kissed only yesterday.
A hot surge of arousal tore through her.

His hand shot out from his side and buried in her hair, jerking her body to his. She gasped when he mashed his lips to hers. She responded instantly, grasping his neck with her hands and letting her Craftsman fall to the floor with a quiet thunk against the old carpet. And she was lost.

Gage’s heart seemed to be beating a thousand miles per minute, threatening to burst free of his chest cavity and onto the floor. He couldn’t begin to explain or even grasp at the emotions running rampant through his mind. Saving Joseph and his daughter had seemed noble at the time. Especially since he was one of the founders of Eden, he had helped create the new town as a form of protection for people like them. And it was a bonus that he knew Eve would hate the fact that he had invited more people along, especially when she acted loathe to just be around him.

His plan had back-fired though. Joseph and Maddie hadn’t been a thorn in Eve’s side, if anything they proved that if Eve had thorn bothering her, it was him and not the two newbies. As the day progressed, it seemed that she had become enamored with the new man. That’s right,
enamored.
Every stupid thing he’d said, she laughed like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in her life. Not to mention that she’d never smiled at Gage like that and it ate at him.

At first he’d ignored it, but as the day progressed it got worse, not to mention the cut on her shoulder. Joseph mewled over it like he was some sort of hero. Once he started rubbing the ointment on her shoulder, Gage had lost it. He could still see it in his mind’s eye, the way the guy had made slow deliberate circles on her skin, rubbing against her longer than needed. The worst part was Eve buying into the bullshit, and looking at him like he really was her knight in shining armor.

Gage snaked his tongue into Eve’s mouth at the memory, tangling it with hers. She moaned into him, setting his blood on fire.
Yes, yes. This is what I want!

She clutched at his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh. The imprint of her short stature was tight against him, because he had made it so. He damned the sports bra she wore, that covered the thick globes of her breasts.

He jerked away and pushed her back on the bed. The movement caught her by surprise and she landed on the old bed lightly, but not without a loud squeak of the springs. His dick throbbed in his pants, almost as if it had a mind of its own, reaching for her, needing her. She was like a painting spread across the flower-patterned sheets, with her blond hair about her head and her bedroom eyes. She was a sight that could have lured any man into bed.
No other man. Only me!
His mind screamed and he flexed his fist by his side.

He took a deep breath and tried to look away from her, but couldn’t.

“What is it, Gage?” The words seemed to drip from her tongue like molasses, sweet and thick. He responded, his body thrumming with anticipation. It’d been a long time since he’d been with a woman, though details of others disappeared from his mind and all he could see was Eve there before him.

“I want you,” he growled as he covered her with his body, nipping at her neck with his teeth. She moaned in response, her body writhing. Her hip brushed against the rigid length of his cock. He grunted in response.

He kissed her mouth again, a feeling of desperation taking over.
I have to have her.
He gripped the bottom of her bra and jerked it over her head, breaking contact for mere seconds that felt like decades. And then she was bare before him. Her breasts were perky, their color lighter than the rest of her skin, which was tan from being out in the sun. Her nipples were a pale pink color, and small. They tightened under his gaze, making his body rigid with want.

Mine!
He reached forward and covered them with his hands, each fitting perfectly like they were made for her body alone. He shuddered when his rough skin made contact with the smooth perfection of hers.

“What?”

He teased his thumbs over her pebbled nipples, reveling in the abrasive trail they made across his skin. “Hmmm?” He lowered his head, ready to take the hard flesh into his mouth. She shoved against his shoulders. He ignored the movement, not letting it faze his downward descent toward her nipples.

She pushed again and this time he halted, meeting her gaze in the dim lighting.

“Why did you say that?”

He frowned. “Say what?”

“You said…mine.” She whispered the word like she was scared of it.

“I didn’t…”
Crap did I say that out loud?
“It was nothing.” He shook his head and leaned back in.

“Stop.” Eve pushed at his shoulders, the malevolence in her voice stopped him cold.

“What?” He leaned back. He watched in dismay as she jerked her bra back over her head. “What the hell?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head back and forth in several rapid motions, as if she was trying to make him disappear. He reached for her, but she flinched away. The action sparked a feeling equivalent to taking her precious pry-bar through the chest.

Gage moved off of the bed. Eve jumped up and scattered toward the door.

“Wait.”

Her hand was on the knob. Her shoulders tense and moving up and down in rapid succession. The candle light reflected off of the salve Joseph had rubbed on her shoulder, making her skin shinier there.

She didn’t turn around, but she didn’t leave either.

He opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say. It didn’t matter though, she beat him to the punch.

“I can’t do this with you, Gage. Not again.” The repeat of what he’d said earlier wasn’t lost on him. “Some things aren’t supposed to happen and they sure aren’t supposed to happen twice.”

Eve opened the door and walked out of it.

Chapter Twenty

The Before

Eve’s life significantly changed after her dad broke her arm when she’d tried to sneak out and go to homecoming. And not just because she was wearing a big, ugly cast.

No, her life changed because Gage changed. He didn’t sit by her in AP Physics anymore. After she’d skipped school on Monday, she’d begrudgingly gone back on Tuesday, afraid to miss again, for fear of what her dad would do to her if he found out.

She sat down in first period that Tuesday and waited for Gage to come in and take his seat next to her, only he didn’t. He was late, as always, and when he came in, he sat in an empty seat next to Allison and didn’t even glance back at Eve once. No one did. Not that she thrived on people’s attention, but she couldn’t deny that she’d grown used to it, especially during first period when every girl in the room would glance back at Gage, clearly in awe of him.

More than two weeks went by, without even the slightest recognition that she existed when it came to Gage, and Eve found herself spiraling downward into a pit of depression. She finally knew what it meant to love someone besides her family members, and even then, the love she had for them was brittle and thin. Gage had become the first person she developed a love for that didn’t feel forced. She loved him, quietly, but freely in her heart.

She’d watched him in the hallway out of the corner of her eye, never looking right at him.
Never.
Afraid that he would see her feelings exposed there in her eyes. Between most classes she could see him down the hall with his arm draped over Sally’s shoulder, his lips against her ear, or his hand in hers.

Eve had never truly hated another person in her life. Sally was the first.

On a Thursday, over two weeks later, things changed again. Thursday was the only day of the week that Eve had to walk home from school. Her parents allowed her to stay and work with an elementary children’s afterschool program for community service hours that would count toward a higher-level high school diploma.

Eve’s mom and dad were God obsessed and did evil things under misinterpretations of the bible, but they weren’t completely stupid, just mostly. They wanted her to do well in school, if she didn’t—well, she didn’t want to find out what they would do, though she feared for the health of her other arm.

Since she stayed late, she had to miss the bus, her usual ride home. Her dad would get home around five. Eve didn’t get out of her duties until six, but they refused to pick her up. So she walked.

She had barely made it halfway down the elementary school’s paved driveway when a black mustang pulled up next to her. She ignored it at first, thinking their reasons for slowing down had nothing to do with her.

Eve was wrong. The tinted window rolled down to reveal Gage in the driver’s seat. She stopped walking and gaped at him.

“Hey Eve, you want a ride home?”

Eve could feel the heat spreading across her neck and up to her cheeks and knew her eyes were bugging out of her head. She turned away quickly and started walking again.
This is probably just some joke. Keep walking. Ignore him and he will leave. Go. Go. Go.

She quickened her pace, wishing she wasn’t wearing the long blue skirt that hindered any chance of quick movement without face-planting.

“Eve.”

The sound of his voice right next to her stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly and looked up into the face she’d come to love, with his dark skin and light eyes. He wasn’t smiling down at her, like she imagined he would be. His face was blank of emotions, save for his eyes. Something was going on there, behind his gray irises, though what it was, she couldn’t place it.

He held out a large palm in front of her. He hadn’t touched her when he approached, an invisible action that she was painfully aware of. He was so close, but yet miles away. The image of his out-stretched hand would stay burned in her memory forever. The way his skin was lighter there, than on his arms, the lines in his palm were dark slashes across the skin, like broken tiles that someone had glued back together.